Posts Tagged ‘climbs’

Stage one of the Rapha CCC Alps ridden by all. Some fast riders at front, setting a fierce pace. Interesting to see if they are still this competitive in eight days time. Some stragglers at the back, but they should be able to ‘get round’… Some have already gone into survival mode. Could be a long ride…

Like this:

The second volume in the series of Rapha Guides, the Great Road Climbs of the Southern Alps continues our journey along the roads and cols of Europe. Written by Graeme Fife with the photography of Pete Drinkell, the book captures the beauty and intrigue of the southern regions of the Alps, exploring climbs and roads steeped in the history of road racing and beyond.

Moving from the Col d’Izoard, close to the French-Italian border and over the mighty Cime de la Bonette, the book then encounters Mont Ventoux in Provence, a trip across the border to Italy and then through the central southern Alps to finish on the Riviera.

As well as full bleed, double-page images, the book features hand-illustrated maps and col profiles. Fife’s narrative, crafted with lashings of historical references, cultural observations and road racing snapshots is matched by the powerful photography of Drinkell.

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Sorry about the lateness of this, I perhaps should have thought about posting it BEFORE I left to go cycle and get lost on the way to Malvern… but I’ll save that one for another time.

After yesterdays post on the joys of road cycling I stumbled across the following.

I typed in the URL of my new favourite blog and what was presented there before me was one of the best posts I have come across in a quite a while so I had to share it with you.

As a spindly-legged kid, I spent most of my summers tucked in my Austrian father’s broad slipstream while we pedaled up and down New Hampshire’s winding back roads. Saddled atop his dinosaur of a Motobecane, ragged cycling shoes wedged into his toe clips and his unruly grey hair flapping in the wind (he never wore a helmet, which, he assured me in his heavily-accented English, were for loozahs), he’d ramble on about all the epic Alpine rides he and his fellow farm boy buddies had done as teenagers. Then he’d crack open a can of Coors when we got home, drain it and tell me more. I knew ‘em by heart: The time they’d hooked their hands onto the back of a bus in order to coast the last few rain-soaked kilometers into Munich just to buy an LP of Revolver; the time they’d stumbled into a Swiss gasthof, cycling caps askew and faces full of grime, only to be fed for free by the matronly proprietor who’d pitied such a worn-out and weary-looking crew; and of course the many occasions on which they’d outmaneuvered slick Italian sport coups down Passo di Stelvio’s 48 hairpin turns. Sure, just the other day I blew a few too many freelance checks on this carbon fiber racing rig, but no matter how modern my tastes have become, I’m still – thanks to dad – obsessed with vintage bikes, no-frills cycling apparel and leg-breaking rides.

Which is why I was so psyched to find these photos. Snapped by (and in some instances starring) Jobst Brandt, a former mechanical engineer for Porsche and the author behind wheel-building bible The Bicycle Wheel, these photos chronicle the Californian’s 20-something Alpine cycling trips dating back to 1959. Despite Jobst’s techy background, however, you won’t find anything in the photos below but rawhide tans, long surfer hair, wool jerseys, vintage touring bikes, gravel roads running wet with Alpine snow melt and summer snow banks piled higher than a set of stacked Suburbans. No route was too daunting for Jobst and his buds. Pretty refreshing stuff.

But what really makes these photos so interesting is that they serve as testament to America’s love affair with cycling and adventure. Long before anal-retentive endurance athletes hijacked the sport with their scientifically engineered training programs, heart rate monitors and recovery shakes, laidback westerners were going nuts for two-wheeled competitions like Colorado’s Red Zinger Classic and California’s Nevada City Criterium, and, just like Jobst, many headed for Europe to retrace the pedal strokes of their heroes. Packing their jerseys’ with spare tires, passports and enough Schillings, Liras and Francs to buy a few post-ride rounds at whatever bar they found themselves in, these guys had a boyish mentality to riding and a real sense of two-wheeled camaraderie, proving that a bicycle’s true value isn’t measured in pounds or price tags, but merely by where it can take you.